More than half a billion Facebook and Twitter feeds were saturated with real-life stories from survivors of humanitarian crises as part of a massive digital storytelling campaign launched by the United Nations and partners in the name of inspiring the world’s humanity.

The campaign, launched last week, leverages the collective power of individuals to inspire a greater sense of global citizenship using the power of social media. Users are asked to turn their social media feeds into storytelling platforms to spread awareness of humanitarian crises in countries like Syria and Afghanistan.

“On this World Humanitarian Day, I urge everyone to show solidarity as global citizens by signing up to the #ShareHumanity campaign,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, at a special event on the eve of World Humanitarian Day, commemorated on August 19.

“By donating your social media feeds for just one day you can promote humanitarian action and help to give a voice to the voiceless by sharing their stories of crisis, hope and resilience,” he added.

At the event, humanitarian leaders, media and celebrities joined together to generate a critical mass of support for #ShareHumanity. Australian singer-songwriter Cody Simpson, Malian-French singer-songwriter Inna Modja, and Colombian music superstar, Juanes, inspired the audience with their performances.
“Tonight is also a celebration of the values and principles that drive our actions: the humanitarian instinct to support people in need,” said UN Humanitarian Chief Stephen O’Brien.
The UN Secretary-General also paid tribute to the 120 humanitarian aid workers who lost their lives in 2014 in the service of helping others.

World Humanitarian Day commemorates the day in 2003 when 22 UN workers were killed in a bombing of the UN offices in Baghdad.
In a related development, Humanitarian Outcomes, a team of research and policy experts that advises humanitarian aid agencies and donor governments,

has established that 329 aid workers were victims of violence in 27 countries.

The countries most affected include Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Pakistan.

Meanwhile, more than 100 million people in countries across the world need urgent life-saving humanitarian aid, with nearly 60 million people now forcibly displaced. This is a crisis of forced migration on a scale not seen in the post-World War era, in which a displaced person will remain, on average, displaced for 17 years.
These growing humanitarian needs and finding better ways to respond to them are the impetus behind the Secretary-General’s World Humanitarian Summit, to be held in Turkey in 2016 – his ambitious global call to action to reduce human loss and suffering from humanitarian crises. He kicked off the official countdown to the Summit by revealing a massive virtual clock at the event and pressing a symbolic button. The global gathering of world leaders from government, business and communities will be held in Istanbul in May – just 278 days away.

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The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a libido-enhancing drug for women that has been dubbed “Female Viagra”.

Flibanserin, a drug produced by Sprout Pharmaceuticals, recently passed an FDA advisory committee meeting.

The pill is designed to assist premenopausal women regain their sex drive by boosting levels of certain brain chemicals.

The drug has been criticised as having marginal effects.

Versions of the pill, which will be marketed as “Addyi”, have been submitted for approval in the past but never passed.

It was rejected by the FDA twice for lack of effectiveness and side effects like nausea, dizziness and fainting.

Women taking the drug reported between half and one more sexually satisfying event per month – results experts admitted were “modest”.

Originally the drug was produced by German company Boehringer Ingelheim. Sprout bought the drug from that company after it was turned down by the FDA.

Documents from the 4 June FDA advisory meeting describe the drug’s purpose as “treatment of hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in premenopausal women”.

Women would take it each night.

A doctor would have to determine whether a woman seeking the pill was suffering from a disorder characterised by a lack of sexual fantasies and desire, causing the woman distress.

Currently, there is nothing on the US market approved for treatment of HSDD or another condition, female sexual interest/arousal disorder (FSIAD).

“This condition is clearly an area of unmet medical need,” the FDA documents said.

Sprout only has 25 employees. Large pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer, Bayer and Proctor & Gamble have all studied female sexual desire disorder treatment but abandoned plans to pursue it.

Sprout’s CEO, Cindy Whitehead, told AP they would promote Addyi carefully.

“We would never want a patient who’s not going to see a benefit to take it and tell everyone it doesn’t work,” she said.

Lobbying by Sprout Pharmaceuticals was backed by the women’s rights group Even the Score, which has accused the FDA of gender bias by approving a number of drugs treating erectile dysfunction in men without passing an equivalent for women.

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Rebels have accused South Sudan’s government of resuming military attacks, a day after President Salva Kiir failed to sign a peace deal aimed at ending the civil war.

Rebel leader Riek Machar said the government had chosen war over peace.

But Mr Kiir’s chief negotiator said the deal was a sell-out that could not be implemented as the rebels are split.

A key issue is thought to be a proposed power-sharing deal which could see Mr Machar return as vice-president.

The deadline for a peace deal expired on Monday night, and South Sudan’s warring parties may now face international sanctions.

Tens of thousands have died and more than two million have been displaced since fighting broke out in the young state in 2013.

South Sudan’s elusive peace:

• At least seven ceasefires agreed and broken since conflict started in December 2013
• Nearly one in five South Sudanese displaced by the current conflict, from a total population of 12 million
• Former rebel leader Salva Kiir became president of South Sudan, the world’s newest state, when it gained independence in 2011
• South Sudan has been at war for 42 of past 60 years

Five obstacles to peace in South Sudan

The sides traded accusations about who was responsible for an attack in the town of Pageri, near the border with Uganda, early on Tuesday.

Military spokesman Philip Aguer said rebel accusations were “lies” and blamed them.

At Monday’s summit in Ethiopia attended by regional powers and international mediators, South Sudan’s government initialled a draft agreement, but requested a further 15 days before signing in full. Mr Machar did sign it.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Salva Kiir to sign up and cease hostilities, saying he was “deeply pained by the horrendous suffering of South Sudanese civilians”.

The US was “deeply disappointed” that President Kiir’s government had “yet again squandered” an opportunity to bring peace by refusing to sign the agreement, a statement from US National Security Adviser Susan Rice said.

“The US deplores this failure of leadership,” it added.

A Ugandan spokesman said his government knew how hard it was to achieve peace “especially when the belligerents have big egos and… put their personal egos above national interests”.

“We can only continue to mediate, to encourage every side to realise that their country is superior to every one of them individually,” Shaban Bantariza said, quoted by Reuters news agency.

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South Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayadit has come under strong criticism, following reports he threatened to kill journalists who report negatively about his country.

The threat comes in the wake of complaints about the South Sudan government’s record of press freedom and according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), president Kiir made the remarks at the airport in Juba on Sunday 16, before he left for peace talks with his political nemesis, former vice president Riek Machar Teng in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

“If anybody among [journalists] does not know that this country has killed people, we will demonstrate it one day, one time. … Freedom of the press does not mean you work against the country,” Kiir was quoted as saying.

‘CPJ condemns statements made by South Sudan President Salva Kiir on Sunday in which he threatened to kill journalists for reporting “against the country,”’ an August 17 release by the CPJ states in part.

It add: “The leader of any country threatening to kill journalists is extremely dangerous and utterly unacceptable,” said CPJ East Africa Representative Tom Rhodes. “We call on President Salva Kiir to retract his comments immediately.”

On Monday Kiir and Machar failed to sign a peace deal brokered by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, an eight-country trade bloc in Africa, forcing the international community led by the United States to warn the warring parties of sanctions.

“Local journalists said they believe Kiir’s comments were in connection with the media’s criticism of the protracted nature of the peace negotiations and for alleging corruption in the government,” the CPJ release states.

Authorities have cracked down on journalists as pressure mounted to commit to a peace deal and the CPJ says at least five journalists have been killed in direct relation to their work in South Sudan this year.

Meanwhile, early this month security agents closed two privately owned newspapers, the Arabic daily Al-Rai and the English daily Citizen, as well as the independent media outlet Free Voice South Sudan.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and nearly two million displaced since the civil war started in December 2013, pitting forces loyal to Kiir against those supporting Machar.

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